(photo from wikipedia)
Quiz: Where in Calcutta can you find a private zoo, 25-foot tall Belgian glass mirrors, chandeliers weighing many tons, original paintings by the likes of Rubens and Reynolds, priceless porcelain vases from China's Ming dynasty, giant stuffed heads of moose, and breathtakingly beautiful statues of Greek gods rubbing shoulders with those of eastern deities ... all presided over by a giant statue of young Queen Victoria carved out of a single block of wood?
Answer: the Marble Palace, built by the fabulously wealthy (and cultured, unlike his early 21st century counterparts!) 19th century Bengali tycoon 'Rajah' Rajendra Mullick. It's just off Chittaranjan Avenue, a few steps after you have passed the Jorasanko Thakurbaari. It's so obscure that even a local rickshawpuller hadn't heard the name (nor had several elderly and young members of the smart set whom I asked at the city's biggest shopping mall, South City. I visited both places the same day in a bid to show my daughter what the city is like today...) Doesn't even the fact that the collection at the palace would be worth several hundred million dollars stir the interest of the most well-heeled of Calcuttans? How much farther will this social dumbing-down go?
Oh Calcutta!
.JPG)
6 comments:
Sir,
I had been there last year with my friends. We visited the Thakurbari and spent more than 4 hours there (although that is too little time to explore the house). The white palace of the Mullicks was ill-maintained, as is common in Bengal. But we were not permitted to go inside the Mullick Bari. According to the security guard, we had to seek permission from some official, and that was not possible in a two day tour. Then, there was the Vivekananda basatbari too. It was my grandfather, who used to tell me stories about old forgotten treasures of Kolkata. There are some snaps (excluding Thakurbari and Mullickbari, where we were not permitted to take pictures) in my Orkut profile. The next time I am planning for the Job Charnok resting place, the Digambar and Setambar Jain temples and the Art gallery!
With regards,
Rochishnu
I hadn't heard of the Marble Palace so I'd been waiting for Pupu to tell me about the place - and all the while I couldn't help but maintain a long silence wondering how I'd never heard of the fascinating place much less visited it.
Later on while musing over that bit of our conversation I was wondering whether someone once had told me about it but I can't bet on the memory...
I'm wondering - were there many/some people there visiting the place when the three of you were there?
I'm not so sure that I would want well-heeled Calcuttans thronging the place though (and what would they say about the paintings by Rubens and Reynolds!)....it's something similar in what I feel when I say that I don't really want the people infesting the malls everyday infesting state parks.
On a connected note - I have no idea where or what the South City Mall is and don't particularly want to know either.
You haven't missed anything, Shilpi. Strictly for the kids of nouveau riche crooks with below-70 IQs...
And no, there were hardly any other visitors at the Marble Palace. Sad, but I found it a blessing.
Interestingly Sir, I lived in a hostel in Calcutta for two full years, which was situated just a couple of minutes from The Marble Place, and had crossed the monument from its backside hundreds of times, but ironically, it was only when I was about to leave Calcutta did I discover that such a beautiful place as this was situated in my neighborhood.
Lucky for you that you did at least get around to seeing it, Nishant: better late than never!
When I was in New York, my host and friend, who had been living there for four years, took me to Jackson Heights to show me the local 'Indian neighbourhood'. Afterwards I dragged him to the Empire State Building, and looking down at the city from the 102nd floor, he thanked me profusely for having persuaded him to do that trip at last! That's the way most people are... I know lots of Calcuttans who have never been to the Botanical Gardens or the National Museum, but have already visited South City mall a hundred times.
Dear sir,
your post really got me thinking. The City of Joy has got so many priceless treasures but majority of us have not even heard of them except for Victoria. So many of us always say we want to go for foreign tours but we lose sight of what is important and valuable in our own country. The lack of interest and care for our own heritage is sad. The story is the same for our national animal – the tiger. It’s diminishing at a really fast rate but no serious efforts at the government level is being made to stop this; except may be a promotional campaign by a private telecom company. We are increasingly becoming a nation where we seem to fascinate about other countries national treasures more than ours. Very little is done to promote our tourism except may be for Goa. People need to realize that knowing the entire of India is a spiritual journey in itself. Maybe we will learn the hard way - unless a thing is lost forever, we shall never realize its importance. But then it will be too late.
Regards,
Avishek
Post a Comment